Miracle on hyper-hot West Eighth Street

A five-story Greenwich Village walk-up apartment building has just traded hands in a week and a half-- for double the price that the seller bought the property for three years ago. Broker insists that there is still a lot of upside potential for the property.

In a remarkable sign of how hot a commodity Greenwich Village property has become, a five-story, walk-up apartment building has just sold in a week and a half—for double the price that the seller bought the property for three years ago.

Joe Koicim, a broker with the sales firm Marcus & Millichap, put 19 W. 8th St. on the market on a Wednesday several weeks ago and handed the keys of the eight-unit property over to buyer Mitchell Marks nine days later on a Friday. Mr. Marks, a landlord who owns a handful of properties in the city, paid $10.25 million in cash for the building, just more than twice the $5 million price that the seller in the deal, a firm called JMC Holdings, paid in 2011.

"That says the market is on fire," Mr. Koicim said.

article continues below advertisement

As a sign of that very thing, Mr. Koicim insists that the property still offers upside to Mr. Marks. Two of the units are rent stabilized, meaning that in coming years, the new owner may have the opportunity to convert those to market-rate apartments and collect more income from the property. The building also has retail space in a market where rents on such space have consistently risen in recent years Mr. Koicim said.